Page 19 of Icebreaker
“No, sorry, I want you to come with us.
“Uh, I can’t go.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because it’s a team dinner?”
“You’re part of the team.”
“I work in the equipment room.”
“And we’d all be fucked if the equipment wasn’t handled, so that makes you part of the team.” I settled my sparking nerves and forced myself to speak clearly when I added, “Please come with me tonight.”
“You really want me there?” Ellie chewed his bottom lip.
“Yeah, I do.”
“Then I guess I’ll be there.”
Happiness exploded in my chest.
After Ellie left for class, the silence of the apartment was deafening. When he was gone, it felt a little less warm, a little less bright. After I cleaned up the kitchen, I wandered into the living room to pick up in there. As usual, Ellie’s stuff had been dropped and forgotten. There was the usual spread of shoes, blankets, and coloring books.
The books warranted a closer look. It was puppies and kittens with simple shapes. He had colored in a few of the pages already, creating polka-dotted puppies and striped kitties. Although he’d mentioned liking simpler shapes, the coloring still wasn’t what I’d expect from a college junior. I stacked the coloring books and crayons in a pile to return to his room, along with the rest of his stuff.
Next, I turned to fix the mess of a couch. When I pulled off the back cushions to straighten them, a bright piece of plastic caught my eye. Wedged between them was a pacifier. I knew it hadn’t been there before my trip because I repeated this process every morning, including the day I left for the game. Unless Ellie had suddenly taken to watching adult-sized toddlers, this wasn’t intended for a kid, which meant it belonged to sweet Ellie, who had a menagerie of stuffed animals.
I tossed the pacifier onto the pile of his other stuff. After tidying up the rest of the living room, I gathered everything and went into Ellie’s bedroom. In a surprise to no one, it was a mess. My intention was to drop off his stuff and walk out, but my best-laid plans weren’t on the menu today.
Since I was going to do a load of laundry anyway, the jumbled pile of clothes on the floor grabbed my attention. In an attempt to be helpful, I reached down to snag it so I could add it to my laundry pile.Oh shit.
It was a onesie. A footed onesie. A footed onesie with moose…mooses—who fucking knew—and foxes on it. There wasn’t any camo in sight. The prints were of the woodland creature variety and had snaps rather than a zipper. No question, it was something a little would wear. Trapped in the onesie was a cloth diaper cover with ducklings on it.
When I set the coloring books, crayons, and pacifier on a relatively clear spot, my eyes landed on an open notebook. Ellie’s journal. The written words jolted my system as the weight and impact of them sank into my chest. My fingers twitched with the urge to flip through the pages to see more of Ellie’s personal thoughts.
Before I got myself into more trouble, I got the hell out of his room. The urge to look through the rest of his stuff was strong, and I didn’t want to push my luck any further than I already had.I tossed the load of laundry in the washing machine, returned to my room, and flopped onto my bed.
I needed to determine whether I was looking at what was in front of me realistically or if it was wishful thinking on my part. The coloring books could go either way. Hell, my mom liked to color too. She didn’t usually pick kitties and puppies, but I’m not sure that made a difference. The cartoons were the same. I knew plenty of guys who watched cartoons, yeah, some of them were more adult, but cartoons were cartoons. Rafe, our captain, said he liked the younger kind because they cleared his brain. Which made the cartoon evidence inconclusive.
The stuffed animals were in the same category. They could go either way, but it felt like a step toward the little side. For the most part, even guys who had a stuffie collection didn’t play with them like Ellie did when he thought I couldn’t hear him. That one went in the little column.
The pacifier? Abso-fucking-lutely in the little category. There was no question at all with that one. And if he had an oral fixation, I’d be more than happy to give him something to suck on.
The onesie could go either way, but the print was definitely on the little side, so I lumped it with the pacifier. But the cloth diaper cover with the ducklings was all little. No notes.
It wasn’t a slam dunk, but I was pretty sure Ellie was a little. If he was, how did that affect me? Did I tell him I knew? Did I tell him I was a Daddy? Well, a wannabe Daddy who had no damn experience but was willing to learn and try because I was already obsessed with taking care of him?
Ellie wasn’t the kind of guy who came around for a good time. He was too sweet and a little naïve for that. He needed to be taken care of, coddled, and loved on, not sent out to a club to fend for himself like a lamb into a wolf pack. He’d be eaten alive.
What I needed to do was be honest with what I wanted. Obviously, I had a crush on the guy. But if I were going to go after him, I had to make it clear there was more to it than just killing some time until graduation because Ellie didn’t deserve to be strung along for shits and giggles.
It was time to be honest with what I wanted. No, Ellie wasn’t my type. I’d always been happy to hook up and leave as friends because it was a good time on both sides. Go to a club, find someone, fuck around, and call it good. There was no fucking way I’d be down for that with Ellie. I’d never been possessive over someone like I was with Ellie. Shit, I liked when my hookups flirted with someone. Half the time, we invited someone to join us because the more the fucking merrier.
The very thought of someone else putting their hands on Ellie made me queasy. Imagining someone else making him come, taking care of him, fixing him breakfast, and ensuring he got to bed at a decent hour was enough to make me see red. There was no goddamned way I could stomach anyone but me doing that. Those were my jobs.
If I was going to do this with Ellie, then I needed to fucking do it. If I didn’t, then a fuckboy, one who looked exactly like Matty, likely waited in the wings to scoop him up. He’d never take care of Ellie’s heart the way I could. If Matty weren’t a Daddy, he wouldn’t even know what to do. I didn’t either, but I knew more about it than he ever would. I knew where to get information, and most importantly, I wanted to figure it out.
Once the thought of someone else taking hold of Ellie flashed in my brain, I knew my answer. There was no goddamn way I was going to let him slip through my fingers. I was already crushing on Ellie, so why would I walk away? I needed to lay my cards out on the table and see if Ellie was interested. Being roommates complicated things, but if he gave me a chance, then we could figure it out.
